While the rest of the Western world’s media has largely settled in for a diet of Santa-tracking and years-in-review, The Guardian has ended the year with a bang, with an extraordinary series of reports on the far-right British National Party. Journalist Ian Cobain went undercover for seven months, to reveal the tactics and membership of this loathsome organization.
There are myriad issues that these reports raise, but here’s some (relating to both the manner of its investigation and its results) to chew on:
- What are the ethics of a journalist going undercover in a manner more associated with a police investigation, or for that matter a spy?
- In what circumstances is it appropriate to name members of this organization? Specifically, I feel a little uneasy about the naming in one of the reports of Simone Clarke, a principal dancer in the English National Ballet; particularly as her partner (on and offstage) is Cuban-born, of Chinese extraction. Nasty as her political views are, and contradictory with her private life as they are, it’s not absolutely clear to me that either justifies her outing on its own.
- Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment aren’t exactly unknown in Australia. Why don’t we have the direct equivalent of the BNP here?
“Why don’t we have the direct equivalent of the BNP here?”
- One Nation
- Australia First Party
Although there is nothing new in this sort of behaviour. When I was at Griffith University years ago, the National Civic Council used to keeps dossiers on anybody they considered to be left of Centre and hand the details on to the Special Branch.
I was never convinced that the tactic worked too well anyway because the Special Branch themseves used to arrest me at Demonstrations about once every month so the work of the NCC was pretty pointless really.
Anyway the spy organisations would have infiltrated the BNP years ago so why
bother? Like everything that is exposed and ridiculed in this way, it will just force the organisation underground where it will be harder to deal with.
The BNP is much smaller and also much more extreme than any comparable group in Australia. In the 2006 elections the BNP got less than 1% of the UK vote, and its highest vote in any electorate was 17%, whereas in the 1998 Federal election, One Nation got 9% of the vote, and Pauline Hanson got about 36% of the vote in the seat she stood for.
I understand that in the past, the BNP has been very very extreme in its statements, with a lot of its support effectively coming from neo-Nazis.
It may be that some sub-set of one Nation supporters are not all that different from the BNP, but I don’t think that 9% of the Australian population are neo-Nazis.
Those are very good questions you raise, Robert.
What are the ethics of a journalist going undercover in a manner more associated with a police investigation, or for that matter a spy?
While I am uncomfortable with the use of the word ethics in association with the word journalist, they just seem to me to be polar opposites, sending journalists undercover has a tradition probably as long as journalism itself and some great exposes have resulted from that, sometimes leading to significant reforms.
In what circumstances is it appropriate to name members of this organization?
That’s a tougher call, especially as the four Guardian articles paint a surprisingly sympathetic picture of the BNP as a party which is disowning the worst of its past and attempting to move towards the mainstream, disavowing violence and overt racism and seeking to pursue its goals through lawful and democratic means. Given that BNP members may well have very sound and proper reasons to keep their membership of that party secret, including fear of harassment, I can’t see that a case is made out that the Guardian is justified in publishing their names, unless it can demonstrate, for example, that the person named holds views which are inconsistent with the publicly stated policies of the party and is using it as a front for something more sinister.
Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment aren’t exactly unknown in Australia. Why don’t we have the direct equivalent of the BNP here?
As Bob points out we’ve got the Australia First Party and Pauline Hanson’s populist One Nation party. They’re not likely to be direct equivalents as parties have to appeal to the perceived needs of their potential supporters and the UK has a very different history, culture, demographic and geography from Australia. Different nutters have different needs.
The bit in the fourth of the articles where BNP leader Nick Griffin is said to have made a almost-casual denigration of British Muslims – “the most appalling, insufferable people to have to live with” gave me a quiet chuckle. I’m sure that the remark was made before Australia regained the Ashes but I expect, and hope, that the Ashes having been regained, and with with lots of Aussies gloating over it, that’s a title that would have passed on to us.
Not to be forgotten was the arrest of Cottage and Jackson with their BNP connections in Sept/Oct. Sprung with the largest amount of chemical explosives ever before found in a house in England, yet the story did not interest the press, The Guardian included. Was it because their is a mindset in the old dart that anglo/saxons don’t do terrorism? http://www.burnleycitizen.co.uk/news/newsheadlines/display.var.947927.0.exbnp_man_held_in_bomb_swoop.php
Obviously there is a well organised opposition to the BNP. The BNP seem to be a very paranoid sort of outfit who don’t seem to see openness and accountability as major values. Strange how the self appointed individual persecutors of Society have a huge victim consciousness as a group. Stilll can’t see how The Guardian expose tells me much more than I would expect from a group of this nature.
Surely the more important question is why give such publicity to a splinter group with so little infuence? The answer is that it is very much in line with Labour’s tactics to talk up the BNP to make Labour and the other mainstream parties seem relevant. (Witness their shenanigans over the BNP ‘threat’ in East London at the last council elections).
Thanks for the post, Robert.
The other question that could be asked is whether any Australian newspaper would be prepared to devote the very significant financial resources that it takes to do investigative journalism of this kind.
I strongly suspect the answer is no.
The comments of Greg M above show that the Guardian really had found that BNP was mainstreaming itself, which to them is the expose, as BNP for Cleveland pointed out.
In the US, the latest PC outrage is that Virgil Goode has said to stop Muslim immigration. See here. On CNN, Paul Begala, a Clinton operative attacked Goode as a bigot. Begala attacked Pat Buchanan as a bigot in 1992 for wanting to restrict immigration as part of the Clinton election strategy. The 19 hijackers came to the States after this, in fact after the WTC 1993 attack.
The 9-11 Families want to restrict immigration. Begala can’t call them bigots, but can call Virgil Goode a bigot. See here for more on this.
Others here have mentioned Pauline Hanson’s One Nation as a direct equivalent to the BNP. I have often wondered how many of australia’s far right lunatic groups attract working class english migrants with a born to rule mentality. Perhaps this is our migrant legacy from a country that has always flirted a bit too closely with german facism, including the royal family.
When Pauline first burst onto the scene, a television interview was done with Pauline at home with her family, and I was struck by the heavy english working class accent of her mother (now deceased), sitting around the kitchen table, spouting the same revolting garbage as her daughter.
Perhaps it is considered politically incorrect these days to ask such questions, but I note that Anne Summers in an article in the SMH yesterday commented that Downer’s wife only became an australian citizen after Alex became a minister, some thirty years after her arrival here, and that she travelled back to the “home country” to have her baby so it would be born english.
Summers then called for the hundreds of thousands of british migrants in this country who have never applied for australian citizenship, and who vote in our elections, to now pledge their allegiance to this country under Howard’s new citizenship test. Fair enough, I say.
Um, the BNP goes a lot further than wanting to restrict immigration, as the Wikipedia article on them describes:
Amongst other things, they want to repeal the Race Discrimination Act, and implement “A massively-funded and permanent programme, using and doubling Britain’s current foreign aid budget, will aim to reduce, by voluntary resettlement to their lands of ethnic origin, the proportion of ethnic minorities living in Britain”.
If that doesn’t strike you as pretty bloody sinister, I don’t know what would.
Furthermore, their commitment to the democratic process is less unambiguous than you claim. According to <a HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,1977445,00.html"one of the Guardian articles, Griffin’s plan is not to win elections in normal circumstances, but establish itself as a political force and wait for the “immense crisis” he believes is coming:
Also interesting is the strong BNP stand on Christmas cards.
“The substitution of Winterfest, lack of nativity scenes and use of alternative images (twinkly snowflakes, polar bears and snowmen) are all designed to get away from our Christian based society. Keep the Christ in Christmas!” is found on their official website.
As part of their blackban on “twinkly snowflakes” they offered proper cards for sale with the following insert……… ” A Christmas Message from the BNP: Be aware of the watering down of the Christmas message, and voice your demand for traditional carols, decorations and activities.” Can you imagine how a BNP chrissy card would go over, on the big day, in some quarters. They were so popular they sold out.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/shopping/merchandise/item.php?id=687
BNP are mainstreaming all right. They even held off mentioning their ‘dreaming of a white christmas’, so as not to offend.
Whom exactly would be offended by a dream of a white christmas?
I reckon that if the BNP wants to mainstream itself, it should start by hiring better card designers.
And yeah, the business of actually naming members struck me as a bit off too. If the Guardian wanted to indicate how far the BNP’s tendrils stretched, they could have just stuck to mentioning positions and jobs throughout. It wouldn’t have detracted from the point they wanted to make.
As regards Australian versions of the BNP, one could also point to the Australian League of Rights, the Australian Civil Liberties’ Union, Australian National Action and Australian National Movement except they lack the nous and wit to even think effectively about “mainstreaming”.
And why would they want to do that, Kim? The only time our nutters have ever gotten any publicity is when Darp Hau was blogging.
Storm in a teacup.
Robert, your post addressed, and therefore my comments responded to, the ethics of the Guardian’s undercover journalist not the sinister mindset and policies of the BNP.
Of course they are a very nasty lot. And of course, as the Guardian article points out, they look to some future crisis when they’ll emerge as saviours of the day. Extremists of all hues have a millenial perspective where a great crisis throws power their way and sadly sometimes that’s just what happens- as per Lenin in 1917 and Hitler in 1933- and then, after that happens, they reveal their true ugly selves.
Fair enough, Greg. I was just trying to make the point that the “mainstream” of the BNP is quite sinister enough to warrant a close eye on them.
It’s interesting which crisis they’re waiting for – a combination of peak oil and global warming. What kicking out non-white immigrants has to do with fixing either I’m not quite sure…
“Griffinâs plan is not to win elections in normal circumstances, but establish itself as a political force and wait for the âimmense crisisâ? he believes is coming.”
That might explain why some members or contacts have been found with possible bomb making equipment, a rocket launcher and a biological weapons suit.
Part of a small cells perhaps and ready for action? More on that case here……..
http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@yahoogroups.com/msg03915.html
Not something a reporter is likely to uncover while a short term member. And, most strangely, when it does come to light your paper do not bother to cover it.
Ian Cobain should be concerned if he has painted “a surprisingly sympathetic picture of the BNP as a party which is disowning the worst of its past and attempting to move towards the mainstream, disavowing violence and overt racism and seeking to pursue its goals through lawful and democratic means” as GregM reasonably puts it. You hang out with these creeps, hopeing they won’t find you out and beat you to a pulp. When they treat you ok, you start to warm to them and inadvertently provide a recruitment tool.
Kim
Ever heard of 4 Corners and the Exclusive Brethren? What about the pack-hunting of the “white supremacist outsiders” following the Cronulla riots? What about the forensic scouring of One Nation’s bookkeeping to nail the Dancer-Formerly-Known-As-Pauline? What about Chris Masters? David Marr?
Come on. The petty obsessiveness of much of the Australian media class far exceeds even The Guardian
grace
Oh please. Most of these types have the same mentality that their ancestors who have settled here over the past 120 years have had. CONVICTS!
We have two members of the IRA in the house of commons who were part of terrorist group that used bombs to kill 1,000s over 3 decades.
You have muslims all over the world blowing 1,000s people up n the name of Allah.
You have a Labour government that began a war on a lie (The last man to do that Was Adolf Hitler over Poland) and is guilty of 100,000s of death.
And they say the BNP is Bad LOL.
Funny world we live in
Or more to the point if psychopaths like the BNP, Hitler ,Bush didn’t have this never ending drive to put themselves in a possition of power over everyone else, the world would be a much saner place.
London is the world centre of international banking.
A large proportion of the money that London-based banks manage comes from the countries of origins of the folk the BNP want to repatriate.
An unfriendly attitude to these countires and its nationals would kill London as a financial centre.
This must send a shiver down the spine of London’s money managers, the bluest of blue-ribbon Tories.
The BNP would appear to me to be primarily an interal problem of the British Right. Many would-be saviours of “Englishness” have risen and fallen during the 20th century — Rotha Lintorn-Orman, Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell, Martin Webster.
Such folks are terribly embarrassing for the Tories. They give the Left an excellent opportunity to drive wedges into the fissures that already exist in the broad right.
The Guardian is doing a good job and they should keep it up. Always the Tories are forced to do something about far-right nutjobs, with casualties on both sides.
A large proportion of money that London based banks manage comes from Pakistan & Jamaica?
Turns out Katz has a sense of humour after all!
SATP – I’m sure this link will be hilarious.
SATP clearly has evidence that a BNP government would “resettle” Pakistanis and Jamaicans, but would allow Saudis, Kuwaitis, Omanis, Chinese, and Japanese to continue to enjoy British hospitality.
Would he care to produce it?
I’ve never doubted the mirthful effects of SATP’s misuse of logic.
Robert Merkel says:
Thats almost too easy to answer. The Wets/ethnic lobby’s are the ideological and institutional apparati of the multicultural industry. They are too self-centred and corrupt to give a straight answer on cultural policy so bad-tempered Dries have to continually step in and set the record straight.
Howard’s tough minded attitude towards their immigration follies/rorts has reassured the Australian populus that this vital area of cultural identity policy is in safe hands. Public opinion towards ethnic immigrants has softened because, not despite, of Howards nationalistic line.
Ten years ago, at the high tide of the Wets/ethnic lobbies, there was a more or less a discriminatory anti-immigrant party – the Hansonites. There was also an indiscriminately pro-immigrant party – the Theophanoids.
Both partisans posed a grave threat to a rational and race-neutral immigration policy based on economic and ethical conceptions of the national interest. Howard destroyed both partisan factions in a series of wily and nasty political campaigns (1996 and 2001 ).
The policy and polity results speak for themselves. Andrew Norton shows that Howard’s national integration policy beats multicultural differentiation hands down in the public opinion stakes:
So the anti-immigrant section of the populus have halved under Howard’s supposedly racist rule. This is despite the fact that Howard has increased the NESB/ESB immigrant ratio! Yet they continue to elect him. I wonder why that might be so. [Dopey looking Wet scratches head thoughfully.]
Not that you would know these inconvenient facts if you had to rely on the Howard-hating Wets/ethnic lobbies for true information about cultural affairs. The hypocrisy and duplicity of the multicultural industry is mind boggling.
Robert Merkel says:
Thats almost too easy to answer. The Wets/ethnic lobby’s are the ideological and institutional apparati of the multicultural industry. They are too self-centred and corrupt to give a straight answer on cultural policy so bad-tempered Dries have to continually step in and set the record straight.
Howard’s tough minded attitude towards their immigration follies/rorts has reassured the Australian populus that this vital area of cultural identity policy is in safe hands. Public opinion towards ethnic immigrants has softened because, not despite, of Howards nationalistic line.
Ten years ago, at the high tide of the Wets/ethnic lobbies, there was a more or less a discriminatory anti-immigrant party – the Hansonites. There was also an indiscriminately pro-immigrant party – the Theophanoids.
Both partisans posed a grave threat to a rational and race-neutral immigration policy based on economic and ethical conceptions of the national interest. Howard destroyed both partisan factions in a series of wily and nasty political campaigns (1996 and 2001 ).
The policy and polity results speak for themselves. Andrew Norton shows that Howard’s national integration policy beats multicultural differentiation hands down in the public opinion stakes:
So the anti-immigrant section of the populus have halved under Howard’s supposedly racist rule. This is despite the fact that Howard has increased the NESB/ESB immigrant ratio! Yet they continue to elect him. I wonder why that might be so. [Dopey looking Wet scratches head thoughfully.]
Not that you would know these inconvenient facts if you had to rely on the Howard-hating Wets/ethnic lobbies for true information about cultural affairs. The hypocrisy and duplicity of the multicultural industry is mind boggling.
That was way more fascinating the second time, Jack.
Cheers.
John Greenfield on 23 December 2006 at 8:45 pm
Direct hit.
Hanson was hounded by the press, mau-maued by the Trots and actually jailed on a trumped-up charge. You would think that would be enough to satisfy the most vindictive Wet. But it not wise to underestimate that push on that score.
Katz on
An unfriendly attitude to these countires and its nationals would kill London as a financial centre.
This must send a shiver down the spine of London’s money managers, the bluest of blue-ribbon Tories.
I doubt it. I daresay that most of the money flowing through the City of London is sourced from the USE or the USA. I hardly think the BNP wants to repatriate Europeans or Americans.
Alot of funny money comes out of the CIS or OPEC. No doubt the BNP is alarmed by Russian mafias and Arabian oil sheiks. But these people do not make up a large proportion of immigrants, at least not in the electorates that the BNP is concentrating on.
What would kill off London as a world financial centre would be a re-surgence of ethnic terrorism in the City. As almost occurred during the last wave of IRA bombings there. Now I wonder what kind of cultural policies might encourage that kind of behaviour?
Perhaps the Cultural Left might consider taking on board policies designed to win over the native-born British working class, instead of imposing their cultural fantasies on the polity. That might actually reduce the political appeal of right-wing racist parties to down-at-heel workers and the like.
webmaster, Could you close the html tag on the comment link above? Thanks.
Jack I’ve always been appalled by the wets but can’t find much to recommend the dries either.
The BNP were decidedly on the way out, a spent force before the WTC bombings.
There are subtle differences between racism, xenophobia and colour prejudice.
The BNP tends to try and juggle all of them, not very successfully. The BNP membership isn’t an intellectual elite. They don’t understand history, and are therefore condemned to repeat it. Some laud Hitler, some hate Hitler because their father/grandfather died in the war.
Some have black mates they exchange racial insults with, some would never entertain any relationship with a black person, no matter how distant.
Some BNP members like Indians because of the comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, some can’t distinguish between Indians and “Pakis” and would willingly assault either.
Some joined the BNP after the London bombings, but don’t remember when the IRA was perpetrating exactly the same kinds of atrocities.
In short, the BNP are not a potent force, they are a vocal lobby group which has no clear understanding of what they want, where they are going or who they are. The great achievement of the Islamic terrorists could be in uniting the various strands of BNP-ist thought and motivating them.
It would help if the Islamists stopped putting up spokesmen who looked like pantomime villains, large, fat, eyeless and with hooks for hands.
Actually, I was wrong in saying BNP supporters don’t know what they want, they do.
In their heart of hearts they want the virtually all-white Britain that existed prior to the 1950s. They want black people off the streets, out of their neighbourhood, and if they can’t or won’t leave, they want them segregated into all-black enclaves miles away where whitey can’t see them.
You know, like Australia.
A visible manifestation of the Brits grieving for their past is in their television programming. More and more series featuring c-list actors solving crimes in Postman Pat land, thatched, flower-strewn windy-laned and black-free.
All that’s needed is Enid Blyton’s Famous Five as extras, on their basket-fronted bikes, cotton dresses flying in the wind, picnic hampers stuffed to the gunwhales with ginger beer, off to pick blackberries.
Woah. Not blackberries.
Why is the war on Christnmas so attractive to the Neo-Nazis?
It seems to me that the BNP is waging a war on the commercialisation of Chrismas and want to get back to some sort of a fundamentalist Christian type celebration of Christmas. But I’m only guessing really as I don’t really understand what this mob is on about. They don’t explain it too well in their propaganda either but it seems to be important to them for some reason.
Even in Strocchiverse logic, I’m finding it difficult to understand how the IRA were a product of “wet” multiculturalism.
Just sayin…
I think they want to go back to that happy little world portrayed in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.
Heh.
Not true Jack.
Read the Bank of International Settlements monograph that can be accessed here.
Very little money is sourced in the US. The US is the major destination for these funds, which are funnelled through London and London’s offshore operations in the Caribbean. These flows represent the giant capital account deficit of the United States.
Much money is routed through Europe, especially Germany, to London.
But most of the money originates in East Asia and the OPEC countries, the very countries who’s nationals are most hated by members of the BNP.
As I said, this is the bread and butter of London’s international banking sector, which makes up more than 25% of the world market.
These London banker wallahs wouldn’t like the BNP cruelling their very lucrative pitch.
I am a member of the Executive of the Solidarity Trade Union in the UK. Frankly I was disgusted at the naming of individuals and the highlighting of their workplaces by the Guardian newspaper. The only purpose of this that I can see is to encourage misguided individuals to harass or confront them or worse, to encourage their employers to discriminate against them. If any of the named individuals are physically attacked or have their property damaged then I think the Guardian will be partly responsible.
It’s ironic that the same newspaper article attacked the BNP for seeking to keep their membership details confidential (although in fact it is a legal requirement under our Data Protection laws).
I feel that we should outlaw discrimination on political grounds (as is already the case in one part of the UK – Northern Ireland) in the same way we outlaw discrimination on grounds of sexuality, race, disability, age, gender and religion.
In the meantime our Union encourages Companies and Institutions to write into their equal opportunities code a policy promising not to discriminate on political grounds.
On a personal level I scarcely distinguish between elements of the media and the State. The Guardian article appears to be part of a psychological warfare operation aimed at discouraging the middle classes from supporting that Party (they don’t care about the proles!).
Our Union stands against discrimination. We welcome BNP members alongside Communists, Socialists, Conservatives – even members of New Labour. We will defend their employment and human rights against this new McCarthyism.
Patrick Harrington
The reason why we don’t have a BNP party here is that both sides of government at least attempted to show they were doing something about community concerns, at least on a federal level, after the rise of One Nation. Both sides of the British divide have not – indeed, until recently, they have run far and fast from it – therefore leaving those who consider they have legitimate concerns no available option other than to support the BNP. But that seems to be changing in Britain, which may see the decline and fall of the BNP as even a fringe power. But a trend of national socialism (which I would see as more left wing nationalistic movements with totalitarian instincts than right wing, just like the Nazi regime) can be seen across Europe to a greater or lesser extent – the difference being the degree in which the government in power has met the concerns (legitimate or not) of a decent proportion of the community over immigration, multiculturalism, and the effects of globalisation. So in France, those groups pick up a very large minority of the vote. In Germany, less, and in Britain, less still.
The BNP should consider publishing the names (& perhaps more) of all Guardian staff.
Maybe SATP it is in everyone’s interest for all parties to be a bit more ethical rather than resorting to Hillbillyism as a simple solution to complex issues..
Malc on 24 December 2006 at 1:55 pm
Cringe-worthy stuff isnt it? That will probably happen as later ethnics lose their tin ear for their adoptive nation. Ethnic identity politicians, such whether Islamic or BNP, eventually get media-savvy. Whether the change is superficial or profound remains to be seen.
Malc says:
You know, like Australia.
The vast majority of Australians want diverse ethnic groups to fit into modern economical systems in an ethical way. Other than that they couldnt care less where they were, so long as they looked “normal” ie didnt dress like an extra in a Hammer horror movie.
I was struck by the degree of black-white integration I found in the tonier parts of inner-London (representative sample?). Most upwardly mobile blacks I saw were better-dressed than comparable whites.
OTOH, a lot of white working class kids copied the worst kind of inner-city black cultural habits. So the race divide sub-divides along class lines.
Malc says:
Englishmen can barely stand each other, let alone other peoples. They love gardens and pets, though. THeir ideal relationship is typified by the Queen’s love for her corgis.
Of course London remains a magnet for international money and people. No wonder Londoners all look so miserable on the street.
There is an interesting article in the Mail on Sunday about Simone Clarke:
The BNP Ballerina
Graceful, talented, cultured.
Full Story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=425586&in_page_id=1770
Simone is not as solar irradiated as the juicy juicy Darcey Bussell. Juicy en pointe! She is on short list for cross-fertilization duties when our maulers cloud your skies any day now.
When we vote there are booths which protect us from intimidation by giving us privacy. That is democracy on the ground, hands on democracy, something The Guardian doesn’t respect.